BREAKING: Highland Council’s Academy Street revamp in its current form is finished as £10 million in funding is lost after a judicial review

Highland Council’s Academy Street revamp in its current form is finished as administration councillors have accepted that the scheme is unworkable in the face of serious opposition.

Crucial to the move was the loss of £10 million in funding meaning the project is unviable - this appears to be the result of the judicial review.

Councillors have voted to 30-23 to end the Academy Street scheme after leading members of the administration accepted the project will not now continue as planned.

Members were presented with four options - which the public were not allowed to see in advance.

But earlier The Inverness Courier discovered there were four options: continue with the appeal; disregard the judicial review and launch a traffic regulation order; relaunch the consultation process on the current options; or abandon the scheme altogether.

Councillors agreed to go with the final option which was to “abandon the traffic road order and cease all activity on Academy Street”.

The meeting was due to be held in private but councillors unanimously agreed to hold the meeting in public, again after significant opposition.

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